Salazar Says Farah The Greatest Of All Time

Alberto Salazar ranks Mo Farah at the top of distance runners. Photo: PhotoRun.net

He believes distance running is now more competitive than ever.

Alberto Salazar, the coach of double Olympic gold medalist Mo Farah, didn’t mince words when he sat down with the BBC for an interview earlier this week.

“For Mo to beat the best in the world twice at the Olympics, he’s not matching those guys who have done the double before,” Salazar admitted. “He’s surpassed them by far.”

In August, the 29-year-old Farah became the first British citizen to complete the historic distance double.

Salazar, who began coaching Farah in February 2011, says the medals resulted from hard work.

“I had expected it to happen, so to see all that training and work come together so perfectly was an incredible feeling and one I will never forget,” he said.

At the London Games, Farah became the seventh man in history to win both the 5,000m and 10,000m events.

“He did it against better competition than ever before,” Salazar contends. “I know Lasse Viren did it twice. But distance running now is more competitive by far than it ever has been. It is a much harder thing to medal in distance running now than it was 20 to 30 years ago.”

Duncan Larkin

Duncan Larkin is a freelance journalist and author who’s been covering the sport of running for over a decade. He’s run 2:32 in the marathon and won the Himalayan 100-Mile Stage Race in 2007. He wrote the book RUN SIMPLE, and coaches runners of all abilities.
You can learn more about him here: http://roadsmillslaps.tumblr.com/about